NORRISTOWN — A Bucks County man showed no reaction as a sobbing Telford woman, who prosecutors alleged was raped by the man while she was unconscious, told a jury she felt betrayed by the man she believed was a friend.

“I woke up with no pants on. I was confused and I didn’t know what was going on. I was confused. I didn’t know what to believe or what was really going on,” the 27-year-old woman wept as she recalled being awakened by police who responded to her home on West Broad Street for a “well-being check” on May 24, 2013. “He’s somebody that I trusted. He’s someone I looked to, to help me, not to hurt me.”

The woman, testifying for Montgomery County Assistant District Attorney Sophia Polites, said she never has had sex with Paul Kerry Wilson II and that she never would have consented to have sex with Wilson, with whom she had been friends for more than 10 years and who was visiting her apartment. Polites alleged Wilson, 29, of the first block of Hickory Drive, Quakertown, sexually assaulted the woman while she was unconscious after the friends spent the day drinking at the woman’s home and at a local bar.

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During the trial that began Monday, an 8-year-old girl testified she was in the home at the time of the alleged incident and had observed the woman sleeping on a couch and couldn’t get the woman to wake up. Later, the child testified, she walked into the room where the woman was sleeping and she observed Wilson, with his pants pulled down, having physical contact with the woman. The girl testified she saw private areas of Wilson’s body during the alleged incident.

“She was completely still,” the little girl, referring to the woman, testified about the very adult subject matter. “I was scared. It was frightening. I couldn’t speak.”

While the alleged crime was investigated by Telford police, Pottstown Detective Heather Long assisted during the investigation as the “forensic interviewer” of the child witness. Long testified she’s observed about 200 forensic interviews of child victims and witnesses during her career.

“I believe she fully understood the questions I asked. She disclosed what she had seen,” Long told the jury, adding the girl at one point told her that she “took a deep breath” because she “had never seen anything like that before.”

Wilson faces charges of rape of an unconscious person, sexual assault and corruption of a minor. The trial before Judge Thomas P. Rogers is expected to last several days.

“(The victim) was so physically, mentally impaired she couldn’t consent to having sex with the defendant,” Polites argued during her opening statement to the jury, alleging the woman was examined at a hospital and that genetic tests linked Wilson to having sexual contact with the woman.

But defense lawyer George Griffith Jr. argued Wilson did not force the woman to have sex.

“Was my client having sex with (the woman)? Yes, he was. But it was consensual sex,” Griffith argued during his opening statement to jurors, declining to hint if Wilson will testify during the trial.

Telford Police Officer Brett Popiny testified he responded to the woman’s apartment about 6 p.m. after police received a request for a “well-being check” from a 911 caller who, according to testimony, reported stopping by the alleged victim’s home, observing suspicious activity and removing the child from the home. When Popiny and assisting Franconia Police Officer Eric Frary arrived they observed a man, later determined to be Wilson, on the front steps of the residence smoking, according to testimony.

Wilson ran inside the building and the officers testified he was uncooperative and wouldn’t tell police his full name when they encountered him outside an apartment door, which was partially open. Police said that when they asked Wilson if anyone inside the apartment needed help, Wilson responded, “No,” and officers noted that he smelled of alcohol and appeared “intoxicated.” When the officers peered inside they observed a motionless woman on a couch in the living room, a blanket draped over the lower half of her body.

“I thought she was dead. The position of her body, her color, no movement whatsoever,” Popiny recalled for the jury, adding the woman did not respond to officers’ voices. “We did a sternum rub to try to get her to wake up. She did not respond to anything. She did not react to touch, to light. She did not talk. She did nothing.”

“Her breathing was very slow. She was pale,” added Frary. “At one point, I thought she was dying. She needed medical attention.”

One officer testified he found the woman’s underwear around one ankle and police summoned emergency medical officials. Responding medical personnel and police were able to revive the woman after about 10 minutes, and she appeared confused and disoriented and unaware of her state of dress, police said.

About the Author

Carl Hessler Jr. writes about crime and justice at the Montgomery County Courthouse for The Mercury and 21st Century Media Newspaper’s Greater Philadelphia area publications. A native of Reading, he studied at Penn State University and Kutztown University before graduating from Alvernia University with a degree in communications. He is a recipient of a National Headliner Award and has been honored for his writing by the Keystone Press Association, Philadelphia Press Association, Society of Professional Journalists and the Associated Press Managing Editors of Pennsylvania. Reach the author at chessler@pottsmerc.com
or follow Carl on Twitter: @MontcoCourtNews.